WPCentral Scoreloop interview [Developers]

In February, Scoreloop announced that they are bringing their cross-platform social gaming system to Windows Phone. We recently interviewed Scoreloop Product Marketing manager Raphael Weiner about the Windows Phone version’s status.

What is the current status of WP7 Scoreloop development?

Since we announced the Beta of our WP7 SDK back in February there's been a lot of interest from many developers using Scoreloop already who want to add WP7 to their roadmap. As it's a Beta there are some aspects of the Scoreloop platform that we haven't yet integrated, but developers can already use Scoreloop for leader boards, player profiles, challenges and achievements, all of which are cross-platform between WP7 versions and other platforms. So really, it's been a very positive start to our support for the WP7 OS.

What is the target launch date?

We expect to launch the full SDK soon - most likely within a couple of months. Right now we are building as much feedback into the SDK and tools as we can.

Head past the jump for the full interview.

How many WP7 developers are signed up right now?

Because it was launched as a Beta we have limited the amount of access so that we have enough resources to support the developers who are trying the SDK for the first time. We decided that 50 was a good number, and we reached that many very quickly after we announced it.

What are the criteria for accepting a WP7 developer into the beta program?

Mainly we looked for developers that were creative and had either quality games already launched on mobile, or that had something in progress that showed potential. Obviously, as a social gaming company, we will always look for developers who want to push the boundaries of how you can add social features to games. We may be the social gaming technical experts, but it's the developers who need to supply the magic ingredient needed to make a really special game.

Can you name any specific games that will have cross-platform features? I.e. a game in which WP7 users will directly compete with Android/iOS users in some way?

Hopefully we'll be able to reveal some WP7 games using Scoreloop soon - but as we are still at the stage of helping with development, we don't have any names or specific features we can share just yet. [We know for sure Pirate’s Mind will be updated to include Scoreloop functionality in the future, though cross-platform features are unconfirmed. – ed.]

Microsoft doesn't allow microtransactions on WP7 at this point. One freemium game, Haypi Kingdom, circumvented the prohibition briefly but they were later forced to remove all mention of purchasing additional content. Will any WP7 Scoreloop games have a microtransaction model? If so, how will it be implemented?

Again, this isn't something that Scoreloop can comment on right now, beyond saying that we of course are working with Microsoft just as we work with all the other OS vendors to make sure our platform integrates in the right way. We certainly wouldn't look to offer features that we can't support in the long term - for us, social gaming is here to stay, so we've got no interest in pushing a feature today that won't work tomorrow.

Have there been any unique challenges in bringing Scoreloop to WP7?

Not really - although WP7 is a new approach for Microsoft in terms of look and feel and features, the process we go through to develop new SDKs follows a similar pattern each time. Microsoft are very supportive of the developer community, so there is plenty of documentation in existence. Having already released SDKs for iOS, Android, Bada and AirPlay, we are getting pretty good at adding new platforms.

That’s all for now, faithful readers. Stay tuned to WPCentral in the coming months for more exclusive Scoreloop news.